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    Who coined the phrase "organic chemistry" and the word "protein?"

    Question #40970. Asked by shady shaker. (Nov 10 03 12:22 PM)


    TabbyTom

    		According to several websites and the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "protein" was first used by the Dutch chemist Gerhardus Johannes Mulder in 1838.

    Nov 10 03, 1:08 PM
    NatalieW

    		I don't know if any one person can be credited with coining the term "organic chemistry", but according to one of my (many!) organic chemistry text books, the 18th century Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman was among the first to express that substances obtained from living things had different properties to those obtained from minerals. This led to the classifications of "organic" and "inorganic" to describe the origins of the substances and eventually these were taken as the names for the respective branches of chemistry, with "organic chemistry" coming to mean the study of the chemistry of compounds found in living things.

    Nov 10 03, 7:51 PM
    shady shaker

    		In "Science: A History 1543-2001" John Gribbin (pp370-1) writes that a Swedish chemist named Jons Berzelius (1779-1848)....."gave the name 'halogens' ....to the group which includes chlorine, bromine and iodine; a dab hand at inventing names, he also coined the terms 'ORGANIC CHEMISTRY', 'catalysis' and 'PROTEIN'." I haven't cross-checked that against any other reference. Can anyone confirm this?

    Nov 11 03, 5:37 AM

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